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Famous Life Death Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Life Death poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous life death poems. These examples illustrate what a famous life death poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Kingsley, Charles
...I

My fairest child, I have no song to give you; 
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: 
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 
For every day. 

II 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; 
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: 
And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever 
One grand, sweet song....Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, 
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were
 lacking. 

Sex contains all, 
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, 
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk;
All hopes, benefactions, be...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...(to where the ashes of both
 my parents are strewn)

i)
ok the pair of you lie still
what's disturbing me need pass
no fretful hand over your peace
this world's vicissitudes are stale
fodder for you who feed the grass

some particles of your two dusts
by moon's wish accident or wind
may have leapt that late-life wound
refound in you the rhapsodists
first-m...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.


Book I


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...I....
Meanwhile the winds, and rains,
And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbors nigh....Read more of this...



by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...ong our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep....Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalion plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Unspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
King leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamed,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying a...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...nchild,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown,
Dædalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep,
Life death overtaking,
Deep underneath deep.

Erect as a sunbeam
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert!
Your silence he sings.

The waves unashamed
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet.
The journeying atoms,
Primordi...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...PART I

It is an hour before the hour of dawn.
Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here
Outside the hollow house that blind men fear,
More blind than I who live on life withdrawn
And feel on eyes that see not but foresee
The shadow of death which clothes Antigone.

Here lay her living body that here lies
Dead, if man living know what thing is de...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, 
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; 
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume,
 crimes, dissipate away from you, 
Your true Soul and Body appear before me, 
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, sh...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things